


Front to Back

by Tawryn



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Femslash Festivus, Minor Jim Holden/Naomi Nagata, Non-Linear Narrative, Polyamory, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28115106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawryn/pseuds/Tawryn
Summary: To Belters, there’s no difference between up and down. Front, back, high, low; it’s all relative in zero-g. Figures that nothing about the two of them would run in a simple, straight line.On Naomi, Drummer leaves a mark.
Relationships: Camina Drummer/Naomi Nagata
Comments: 30
Kudos: 87
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Front to Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarFey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, SugarFey! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thanks to htbthomas and CompassRose for their excellent betaing.

Naomi is warm. Is it the drink? The anticipation? She can’t tell, and it doesn’t seem like the right moment to examine her feelings in any case.

“What you thinking?” Drummer is asking her. “You _wanya_ go shield or talisman?”

It’s Naomi’s second go-round at Chief Engineer, but the _Behemoth_ is her third command post. This is why she’s swiping through tattoo designs in Drummer’s quarters—this and no reason beside.

“Shield, I think.”

Naomi doesn’t consider herself a superstitious person, but even the skeptics still hedge their bets in the end. _Beltalowda_ know with certainty that when you need a little luck you get a tattoo. They learn it on the knee of their _pampa_ just like they learn other truths. Air and water are precious. Always check your equipment yourself. Inners never have Belters’ best interests at heart.

Naomi scrolls through a few more options, thinking it’s no coincidence that Earth is the third planet and trouble comes in threes.

-

“I’m a wrong reason now?”

Breaking things is part of the job. Naomi has broken and repaired more equipment than she can count, but the way Camina is looking at her right now—dry-eyed, desolate, and weary—for the first time in a long while, Naomi is finding she’s uncertain in her abilities. This… this may not be something she can fix.

“No,” Naomi says. She swallows against the wrenching ache clawing at her stomach. “Never. But you weren’t why I came. You were why I stayed.”

“Funny.” Camina’s mouth is a hard, unhappy twist. “This _na_ look like you staying.”

The words hit Naomi’s skin with a searing, almost physical pain. “Jim needs me.”

“The Belt needs you.”

She doesn’t say, _I need you_ , but she doesn’t need to. Naomi hears it all the same. She hesitates, telegraphing her intent, and when Camina steps away from her touch, Naomi feels it like a knife between the ribs.

“Camina,” she says, throat thick with despair. “I have to go.”

Like everything else she does, Camina kisses hard. This time it’s nearly a snarl, frantic and desperate as their mouths meet. Naomi can feel the coming bruises as Camina grips her tightly, her strong hands moving to Naomi’s arms, hips, the back of her neck. She kisses Naomi like it’s the last chance she’ll have to leave her mark. It very well could be.

Naomi breaks the kiss. “I’ll come back.”

Camina looks like she wants to make a quip about just how many people have broken that same promise. Instead, she presses their foreheads together. “Be careful out there.”

Naomi brings her fingers to Camina’s lips and draws a kiss across them. She waits—one, two, three breaths—and on the fourth, she makes herself pull away.

“You too.”

-

Positioning matters. For a shield tattoo, chest or back is generally best. Talismans tend to go on arms and faces, but so do political and faction affiliations, and Naomi wants it clear from a distance that she is nobody’s dog.

“That’s a good one.”

It’s abstract, a collection of sharp, geometric lines. To Naomi it’s a protective coalition: a defensive buffer of dreadnoughts with a small ship rising above in the twelve o’clock position. There’s a strength to it that feels right.

“Yeah,” Naomi agrees. “This is it.”

She unzips her coverall a little more, shrugging out of the sleeves. Naomi pauses, then tugs her top further down the swell of her breasts, leaving it so the fabric just covers the dark of her areolae, and applies the numbing cream. She’s dealt with a lot of shit over the past year. Better make this shield big. She jumps when Drummer’s cold hand lands on her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Drummer says. She blows into her fist a few times and then puts it back. “Better?”

It’s not. If anything, Drummer’s hand is now cold and slightly clammy, but Naomi doesn’t mind. She grins and looks Drummer in the eye. “Get on with it already, _bosmang_.”

The corner of Drummer’s mouth quirks as she fires the gun up, a low humming filling the vast room. The numbing cream has done its job, so Naomi feels nothing more than a faint tingling sensation as the laser sweeps over her chest. Her skin prickles with warmth. Drummer is focused while she works, but all it takes is one giggle and the mood shifts.

Drummer is looking down at her now, one eyebrow raised. She still has that sly glint in her eye, but it’s changed. Sharpened.

“ _To gut?_ ” Drummer asks, but doesn’t stop moving the tattoo gun across Naomi’s skin.

The tingling has morphed into a new sensation entirely. It tickles, stirring up a heat that is quickly spreading through Naomi’s body, blazing across her skin as if it were made of grass. Naomi swallows, her throat clicking.

“Yeah,” she lies. “I’m good.”

-

Seeing Camina after the slowdown is like being sucked down a gravity well. Everything in her drops, and then just keeps on dropping.

“They said you were injured, but I didn’t…” Naomi trails off. “How are you?”

“Back aches pretty bad, right down to the spot where I can’t feel anything at all.” The corner of Camina’s mouth lifts in wry derision. Naomi tries to apologize, but Camina cuts her off with a harsh, “Don’t.”

Neither can look at the other for a long moment. The silence weighs, growing heavier and heavier.

“Ashford knows you’re back?” Camina asks. She’s always been the braver one.

“I’ve spent the last several hours making repairs to the ship’s power grid.” Naomi snorts. “He told me what you did.”

Now Naomi is a target. Now Camina is locked on and not looking away. “One of us needed to make it.”

“I know,” Naomi says. “Just like I know you needed to fire on the _Rocinante_.”

The lines of Camina’s face deepen, but she doesn’t flinch. “I’m sorry.” Her voice is as steady as her gaze. “You know I didn’t want to.”

Camina’s eyes are darker than anything she’s ever known, and Naomi is the first to break. She picks up a screwdriver just for the excuse of looking away. “A wise person once told me that being in charge sucks the big _felota._ Sometimes...” she says slowly, “sometimes you have to make the hard call.”

There are a lot of things Naomi doesn’t know. But when Camina reaches out to rest a hand on her arm, Naomi is glad Camina’s touch isn’t one of them.

-

Klaes Ashford couldn’t carry a tune in a boat on the float, but he knows all of Naomi’s favorite drinking songs and for that she can overlook this shortcoming. What he lacks in vocal ability, he makes up for in enthusiasm.

“And it's all for _rowm_ _mi_ , _ora xush_ , _rowm_ _mi._ All for _mi_ friends near and far. The man on the floor _na_ drinking no _mo. Rowmwala!_ I’ll have what he’s having.”

Naomi laughs and joins in for the next verse. “Well I spent all _mi_ scrip on the _ámawala_ I _wit_. Spent it all on my love and my rum,” she sings. “Easy _kom_ , easy go, steal a ship and earn _mo_. Far across the expanse I must wander!”

The crowd in the retrofitted bar is thin with a smattering of crewmembers coming off beta shift, but they pick up the rest of the song all the same. Drummer, the lone holdout, heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m not drunk enough for,” she waves one hand in a gesture of mild disgust, “all _this_ yet.”

A grin starts to spread on Naomi’s face. “Are you offering to buy the next round?”

“A generous soul, our captain,” Ashford says, and he and Naomi clink their glasses together in a toast.

Drummer scoffs, her eyes shining with mirth. She claps a hand over Naomi’s shoulder and gives her a good-natured shove as she pushes past to the bar. Naomi watches her go, tracking the way Drummer’s muscles move under her shirt, her skin tingling with warmth in the spot Drummer touched.

“You’re good for each other.”

Naomi’s stomach lurches uncomfortably, and she snaps her gaze back. “What?”

Ashford is giving her an easy smile. “You and Camina.” He tilts his glass in her direction. “You have a balance. It’s good. She listens to you.”

“Not always.” Naomi glances back to the bar where Drummer is arranging glasses on a tray.

Ashford chuckles. “More than me, _sésata_. But we’ll make a good team, I think. Individual commitment to a group effort,” he pauses to finish his drink. “That is what makes a team work, a society work, a civilization work.”

“Maybe we should keep these. Doesn’t sound like need for any more,” Drummer says, her drawl sly as she sets the glasses down and slides one over to Naomi, “if you already waxing poetic.”

“Ah,” Ashford scoffs. “Please. As if you’ve never been sentimental.”

Drummer looks insulted by the mere suggestion.

-

The cool intensity with which Drummer is watching her does nothing to slake Naomi’s heat. Her skin pulses under Drummer’s touch like a live wire. Naomi is biting her lip; she can’t stop laughing. Drummer leans into her, applying more pressure to still Naomi’s shaking shoulders, and her mind flashes to Jim, to pushing him down on his knees, and Naomi hiccups on a gasp.

The laser stops.

“Still another few centimeters to do.” Drummer gestures to Naomi’s top. “Need you to pull that down.”

Naomi can still hear the hum of the gun echoing in her ears, the buzzing ringing in her skin. She holds Drummer’s gaze as she wordlessly complies, baring the rest of her breasts.

“This enough?”

Drummer’s laugh is quiet. “For now.”

When the tattoo gun comes back on, Naomi is grateful for the excuse. It’s easy to pretend that’s the source of the throbbing between her legs.

-

Jim’s face is cheery, if a bit stilted—the 4.2 million klicks between them gives the tightbeam about a 14 second delay. “Hey,” he says. “Nice tattoo. I like it. Looks good on you.”

“Hey, yourself,” Naomi answers. “And thanks. Camina did it.”

Jim’s brows raise. “Camina?”

“Drummer.” 

“Well, you guys have gotten close,” Jim teases. “I’m glad. You need someone out there watching your back.”

“Yeah, about that. I...” Naomi trails off, searching for the right words. “I like her.”

Jim gives her a soft look. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and her hands remember the feel of his stubble. The short bristles bending under her fingertips, the heat of his skin. Four million, two hundred thousand kilometers, and the distance is a tangible ache.

“You know I’d never expect you to commit exclusively to me, right?”

Naomi blinks, thrown by the segue. “What?”

“Just,” he pauses. “You seem happy with her.”

Naomi’s cheeks heat. “We’re just friends, Jim,” she says. “There’s nothing going on.”

It’s not a lie, but Naomi’s gut churns with guilt anyway.

“I know.” He gives her a roguish smile. “I’m just saying, if you wanted to change that you have my permission.”

A swell of affection rises in her chest. “Have I told you how much I love you?”

Jim laughs. “Well, not today.”

-

With Jim, sex always has an edge of reverence to it, a sort of selflessness that nearly crosses the line into worship. There’s nothing wrong with that; in fact, Naomi loves letting Jim cherish her in this way. But it seems ironic to her now that she be in a church, surrounded by sego lilies and all-seeing eyes, enjoying the other side of the coin.

Camina doesn’t fuck like Naomi is something to be adored. Camina fucks like she does everything else, like there’s something to be won, like she doesn’t trust anyone to do it better. Where Jim is all give, Camina is more _take_.

“You’re going to kill me,” Naomi says, groaning as Camina pulls away. Her eyes are dark, her mouth and chin wet as she holds Naomi’s gaze, slowly wiping the mess away with the back of her hand. Naomi shudders with a fresh spark of desire.

“No better way to die.” Camina’s voice is triumphant in the way it always is after she makes Naomi come. She climbs up Naomi’s body and kisses her, hot and wet, until her hand terminal chimes and she withdraws with an annoyed huff.

“What?”

“We pick up an anomaly, Captain. Think _mebi_ you _wanya_ take a look, _ke?_ ”

Camina’s frown deepens. “On my way.”

She goes to rise out of the pew, but Naomi holds her back. Camina cocks her head, arching a brow as Naomi slides to her knees.

“Five minutes?”

Camina threads a hand in her hair, eyes glittering. “You can try.”

It takes more than five minutes.

-

“Done,” Camina says.

Naomi stands and moves toward the full-length mirror, Camina following behind. The tattoo is huge, a prominent spread from the hollow of her throat all the way down to mid-sternum. It makes Naomi feel powerful. Protected. Camina meets her gaze in the reflection.

“Now you’re covered,” she says, tapping two fingers between Naomi’s shoulder blades. “Front to back.”

Camina doesn’t take her hand away. It feels like more than just luck—by the look in Camina’s eyes, Naomi knows it’s a promise.

She smiles. “Front to back.”


End file.
